BEVIEWa— THE COUESE OE COLLEGIATE EDUCATION. 175 



Chancellor, and constituting the University of the State of New 

 York. Dr. Tappan remarks of it : " The control which this board 

 exercises, is very slight, and the several Colleges appear to 

 enjoy equal independence with the Colleges of other States." It is 

 an organisation, nevertheless, capable of effecting the greatest benefit, 

 and only requires to extend its control a little further, to make a 

 high and uniform standard of Scholarship supersede, throughout that 

 important State, the reckless and lawless system of diplomaed medio- 

 crity, which has sufficed to bring the degrees of American Colleges 

 into merited contempt. 



Such a system of comprehensive and efficient centralization the 

 Chancellor of Michigan University proposes and boldly advocates for 

 his State, adding to his scheme the indispensable element of effective 

 union under one system of all educational machiner) r , from the hum- 

 blest common School to the central University, the fountain of scienti- 

 fic and literary rank. " A University" says Dr. Tappan, " can have 

 no branches, unless we so designate its faculties. A University is a 

 compact association of learned men, incorporated and existing in one 

 place. To distribute it into branches planted in different places 

 would prove as incompatible with its offices as to scatter abroad a 

 Legislative Assembly, and would in fact destroy it." In this per- 

 fectly true remark, however, the Chancellor we suspect says more 

 than he means, confounding the functions of College and University. 

 He next refers to the attempt to create an efficient system of Gram- 

 mar Schools, or " Gymnasia essential to a well ordered system of edu- 

 cation, and without which Universities cannot reach their full propor- 

 tions and efficiency." Following up this idea he thus proceeds : 



" It was unfortunate that the plan could not have been properly digested and 

 carried out. To place them [the schools] upon the university fund was suicidal 

 of the whole undertaking ; for they only diminished a nutriment which can never be 

 sufficient for both, without deriving an adequate supply for their own existence. 



The Union schools which have since ariseu are but another expression of the 

 same idea — the idea of taking pupils who have received the first rudiments of 

 learning at the primary school, and inducting them into a system of regular 

 training, based on the constitution of the human mind, and the natural order of 

 the growth aud unfolding of its faculties; and on the nature of different studies 

 as ministering to this growth, and forming a philosophical discipline of the 

 faculties graduated to this order ; so that, from childhood to adolescence, and 

 from adolescence to budding manhood, the mind shall be led along genially aud 

 cheerfully, to any point of education less than the full course, or by completing 

 the course, to a preparation for the university. This is the true gymnastic course 



in Canada, in the hope that it might help to some understanding of the difference 

 between a University and a College, which at present would seem to be nearly un- 

 attainable. 



